Complex Outcomes, Simple Patterns | LSW#44

Why you don't need a complicated "formula" to get outstanding results

Hey! It’s Sheril Mathews from Leading Sapiens. Welcome to my newsletter, where I share strategies for getting savvier at the game of work.

In this edition, I challenge a common trap we fall for: that outstanding outcomes require complex approaches. This is part I of a two-part series.

Recent editions ICYMI:

• Donkey, Fox, Sheep, Owl

• Sailboats, fishermen, careers

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Building your repertoire

When clients ask me what books they should read, the first thing I tell them is NOT to read in a given genre exclusively. E.g. if you’re a manager, don’t just read the leadership genre. Why?

• One of the best ways to build cognitive capacity is to draw upon other domains of knowledge. You can learn a lot more about leadership from history, and even fiction, than the latest leadership bestseller.

• The more varied your reading, the wider the repertoire of patterns and connections you can draw upon.

In that spirit, in this 2-part series we’ll draw upon a couple of classic papers from complexity/architecture and from systems thinking. Both are worthy of closer study, but for our discussion we’ll stick to the key parts relevant to careers and leadership.

A quick update, before we jump in.

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⚡️Update

Enrollment is open in my April cohort of Mastering Organizational Savvy.

• Use below link to take 20% off.

• Have questions? Hit reply, or set up a call with me. As a bonus, we can tackle a current challenge you’re facing.

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Complex outcomes don’t require complicated approaches

We often set ambitious goals and then back that up with equally ambitious plans for action. This sounds logical but can also be a mistake. Why?

If the required actions are too complex:

• the friction will very likely stop you from simply doing it

• you might not do it long enough to actually move the needle

• the brilliance of your “strategy” blinds you to flaws in your execution

Instead, what’s often required is understanding and mastering basic patterns that can be repeated consistently over a long period of time. What do I mean?

Let’s look at a simple example from a paper by Christopher Alexander. [1] Consider the complicated pattern below:

When we first examine this end result it’s clearly complex. However, this outcome was built from a group of underlying rules and patterns that were repeated recursively:

You can see this evolution in the sequence below:

Here’s Alexander’s key point:

Through this sequence of seven transformations, we see the growth of a coherent and sophisticated structure, from simple moves. The names given at the end of each step are references to the 15 properties and wholeness- extending transformations, which play a fundamental role in the creation of this drawing.

The example is instructive because, although simple, it is complex enough to be interesting. We can see… how recursive use of these transformations on the emerging centers, and on the centers that the transformations themselves generate, is potentially a powerful process, perhaps one capable of generating all complex configurations in their totality.

The same applies to our careers:

• Simple patterns and moves repeated continuously over long periods of time have a much higher likelihood of success than a one-time fancy prescription done inconsistently.

Reflection Questions

Take a closer look at your own plan for the year/quarter/decade and consider the following:

• Is it building on repeating patterns?

• Do you know what those moves are to get the desired outcome?

• Are they built into the daily fabric of your work & life?

• Do have systems in place that support this behavior?

• Does it require extraordinary talent? Or is it more about effort & consistency over time?

Based on the above, what are you going to:

• Stop doing?

• Double-down upon?

• Start doing?

In the second part of this series, I’ll focus on time-horizons — another often misunderstood and wrongly implemented concept.

Related Reading

The below pieces are along similar lines. Counter-intuitive, but based on what actually works:

• Instead of hitting home-runs, consider the mechanism of small wins. And it’s NOT about “getting 1% better everyday”.

• Peter Drucker highlighted how practices will beat charisma any day in his classic The Effective Executive.

• Obliquity is often the most efficient path to our aspirations.

• The mundanity of sustained effort is actually the bigger challenge than the difficulty of outcomes

• [1] Alexander, Christopher. “Harmony-Seeking Computations: a Science of Non-Classical Dynamics based on the Progressive Evolution of the Larger Whole.” (2009).

That does it for this edition! Thank you for reading and please share with someone who might benefit.